Alice Welbourn

Alice is a writer, trainer, researcher, networker & global advocacy activist on sexual & reproductive health & rights, violence against women (VAW) & HIV.

Throughout most of the 1980s, she first conducted PhD research in rural Kenya; and then worked for 5 years, supporting communities with rural health, water and sanitation, and related issues in Somalia. Returning to the UK in 1990, she became a trainer in participatory learning approaches, focusing on community-based gender-and-youth-focused health and wellbeing, working with NGOs across Eastern, Southern and West Africa.

Then post-HIV diagnosis, and based on these interactive learning experiences, Alice wrote the “Stepping Stones”, community training package on gender, generation, HIV, communication & relationship skills. Realising that without policy change, communities were often powerless to change, Alice then decided to join the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS.

She chaired this from 2002-5, where she first met Angelina Namiba, who was a trustee. In 2008, Alice founded Salamander Trust. Together with women living with HIV globally, Salamander’s work has focused on training, research and advocacy.The training has included Stepping Stones and also support for Angelina’s 4M peer mentor mother UK-wide training, before it became an independent organistion.

Research has included: WHO-, UNWOMEN-, and UNAIDS-commissioned global participatory surveys & guidelines; reviews; & frameworks respectively; to make global policy align better to women’s lived experiences.

Advocacy has been ongoing around all these issues. With the CUSP Collective & the STREAM Network, Alice is currently exploring feminist scaling processes through women’s movement building.